Mar. 10, 2013

Written by

Shannon Mullen

Gannett New Jersey

HOW TO HELP

The Sandy relief fund chaired by New Jersey first lady Mary Pat Christie has raised more than $32 million so far. But four months after the superstorm devastated New Jersey, none of that aid has reached storm victims.

In an interview, Christie pointed to reasons for the delay: the logistical challenge of starting a charity from scratch, the relief fund’s focus on addressing long-term recovery needs instead of short-term relief, and her own “methodical” approach to putting the proper resources and safeguards in place.

It was never the intent of the Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund to quickly provide monetary aid directly to storm victims, she noted. Instead, the plan was to lend support to reputable nonprofit groups that will provide victims with financial assistance and other services in the months and years to come. The relief fund plans to distribute $1 million in grants this week, with another $5 million to follow several weeks after that.

“I have taken excruciating steps to make sure that we give the money out in a really judicious way,” Christie said.

“You want accountability. You get accountability when you go through a methodical structure,” she said. “So, in three years when I’m still distributing money at Hurricane Sandy Relief, ask me if we’re doing enough.”

Christie’s defense of her charity’s performance comes on the heels of the pointed barbs her husband, Gov. Chris Christie, has hurled at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, among others, for what the governor sees as inexcusable delays in helping the state’s residents, businesses and communities still reeling from the Oct. 29 storm. Christie famously called Congress’ holdup of Sandy relief “disgusting.”

'Let's move it'

The deliberate pace of Mary Pat Christie’s 4-month-old charity contrasts with the Robin Hood Foundation’s rapid turnaround of the $67 million raised by the 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief.

To date, Robin Hood has awarded more than $50 million in grants to dozens of nonprofit groups, with nearly 40 percent of its funds earmarked for relief efforts in New Jersey. The foundation expects to commit almost all of the remaining concert money by the end of the month.

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Mary Pat Christie, however, said the comparison is unfair. Robin Hood has 25 years of experience and 85 employees, while her fledgling charity has only four people on staff.

Her former chief of staff and director of protocol, Cam Henderson, who had no prior experience running a charitable foundation, has been tapped to serve as the fund’s executive director, at an annual salary of $160,000. The average compensation for top executives of nonprofit organizations with budgets between $25 million and $50 million in 2009 was $309,466, the charity noted.

“We have a very, very thin staff, really hard workers. We get everything we can on a pro bono basis,” Christie said, as she sat at a conference table in the charity’s spartan headquarters in Harding, located on the top floor of a converted barn. A local firm, Hampshire Real Estate Cos., is donating the office space.

Christie’s relief fund announced Dec. 27 that it was making an initial commitment of $1 million in start-up funds for long-term recovery committees that will coordinate relief programs at the county level for the next several years.

However, those funds hadn’t been released as of last week. The delay stems from the fact that the recovery groups were subsequently required to submit formal grant requests to the relief fund for review by Feb. 15.

The charity’s grant committee, of which Mary Pat Christie is not a member, met two weeks later to vote on the grant amounts, which were publicly announced March 6. The six county committees receiving the grants should have the funds on hand sometime this week, the charity said.

That $1 million in aid represents just 3 percent of the amount the charity has raised. That doesn’t sit well with storm victim Gigi Liaguno-Dorr.

“That’s absolutely 100 percent unacceptable, because we want help yesterday,” said Liaguno-Dorr, a Middletown resident who is still at battling her insurance company over the destruction of her Union Beach restaurant, Jakeabob’s Bay.

From scratch

After her husband asked her to chair the relief fund and become its chief fundraiser, Mary Pat Christie said she put her full-time job with a Wall Street hedge fund on hold for two months to concentrate on getting the charity off the ground.

She spent that time soliciting advice from charity experts, making calls to wealthy individuals and corporations, seeking sizable donations, and assembling a small staff and a bipartisan operating board. She also helped recruit celebrities to join an honorary advisory board, which now includes Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Bono.

Christie, who has since returned to her hedge fund job, said the charity has come a long way since she sat in the governor’s mansion just days after the storm watching the charity’s newly activated Facebook page and Twitter account come to life.

“I remember Justin Bieber retweeted us, and we were so excited. I mean, this was really back of the envelope, at the kitchen table with the generator going (that) first weekend,” she said. “I kind of marvel at what we did in six weeks.”

• Work force development, to help those who lost their jobs because of the storm.

Like the Robin Hood Foundation, the fund will distribute aid to nonprofit groups, not individual victims.

“Those organizations are people. Look, we can’t cut checks for $100,000 to (give to) a person. That would be completely irresponsible,” Christie said. “That happened after Katrina. People would take their checks and move to Texas. That’s one of the things we’ve learned after other hurricane disasters, so we’re not going to do that.”

The overall goal is to help bridge the gaps in funding and services that are sure to arise after government aid and insurance settlements are fully paid out, which hasn’t happened yet, Christie noted. The gap in rebuilding costs alone could reach $2 billion, she said.

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With that start-up work largely accomplished, the process of awarding grants will accelerate, she said.

Grant requests can now be made directly through the charity’s website. The next round of funding, totaling $5 million, is under way, with applications due by March 15.

“Admittedly we’re learning how to do this, but I was also willing to take our time and be careful,” knowing that other groups such as the American Red Cross and the Robin Hood Foundation were already providing aid, Christie said.

“I actually think that we’re going to be distributing this money at a really opportune time, because some of those organizations will have moved on,” she said. “We’re planning to be around for two to three years, so we’re not here for 60 days and gone. We’re going to be here until the state is recovered.”

A political agenda?

The first lady dismissed the possibility that some major donors could view the relief fund as a way to curry favor with her husband’s administration in a re-election year.

“I think that that notion is just absolutely ridiculous,” she said. “It tells (me) that people don’t understand me or my husband, and maybe don’t have an appreciation for the sufferings that New Jerseyans are going through.”

The relief fund’s list of top donors is a veritable who’s who of the state’s largest corporations. Several of them, including AT&T, Hess and Toys “R” Us, have pledged $1 million or more.

Among the fund’s more than 26,000 donors are numerous state-regulated businesses, such as banks, insurance firms and utility companies that are prohibited from making contributions to political campaigns.

Political watchdog groups have been critical of similar funds connected to governors in other states. In recent years, for example, the Supriya Jindal Foundation for Louisiana’s Children, headed by the wife of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, has come under fire because of the support it has received from oil companies and other industries that are regulated by the state.

Mary Pat Christie said she made it a priority to ensure the charity’s operating board was politically diverse. Its members include attorneys William J. Palatucci, her husband’s longtime confidant, and Jerry Zaro, another friend of her husband’s who was the head of the state Office of Economic Growth under former governor Jon S. Corzine. Former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, a Democrat, is a member of the honorary advisory board.

Jeff Brindle, executive director of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, sees no problem with regulated corporations contributing to such a fund.

“Personally I think it’s a great thing that people are contributing to this charity,” Brindle said. “There’s absolutely nothing illegal about it. We want to raise as much money as possible to help people down the shore.”

Mary Pat Christie said she knows the relief fund won’t be able to meet all pressing recovery needs, but she feels an obligation to do whatever she can.

“It’s amazing how resilient these people are,” she said of the storm victims she’s spoken with throughout the state. “Hopefully, people, at the end of the day, will have seen the good in what we tried to do.”

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